The Second Product Strategy Pack

What is the Second Product Strategy Pack

The Second Product Strategy Pack is a complete decision-support kit for one question: what made the first product work, and how much of it does the second one inherit? It is built around one organizing claim: succeeding once teaches a company that it is good at building products, when what it has is a channel, a brand, a relationship, or a capability. Sixteen files carry it: the foundations, a concept deck, a scored decision wizard, a transfer model blank and worked, the moves at each position, nine sourced second products, a fit worksheet, a roadmap template, a practitioner manual, a field checklist, and an orientation page.

The test that runs through every file

Succeeding once teaches a company that it is good at building products, when what it actually has is a channel, a brand, a relationship or a capability — and the second product is the test of which one transfers. It is the argument in the deck, it becomes the wizard’s axes, it drives the model’s inputs, and it reappears as lines on the checklist. That is what makes 16 files a product rather than 16 documents.

The model resolves to one number you can negotiate with: The transfer — how much of the first product's advantage the second one inherits. It ships blank and worked, and every input is a named cell rather than a figure buried inside a formula, so the number arrives with its assumptions attached rather than on its own authority.

Why the second-product question never gets asked

Because naming one advantage is an act of subtraction, and subtraction reads as weakness in a launch document. Saying 'this rests on the distribution relationship' means saying the brand and the engineering are not what this rests on — in a paper being read by the people who own the brand and the engineering. So the paper keeps all four, the advantage stays unnamed, and the transfer assumption goes in as a revenue forecast instead.

This pack turns that into arithmetic. It estimates the ceiling, what the second product would earn if the whole advantage moved across intact, which is what forces the naming argument to a conclusion. It works backward from your own forecast to the transfer share the paper is already assuming. Then it compounds the build at the hurdle your capital committee applies, over the years the product gets, and returns the transfer the attempt actually needs.

What is in the Second Product Strategy Pack

• Foundations. The framework: the four things a first product can be, why the advantage never gets named, the transfer, and the five halts.
• Concept deck. Twenty-two slides for a board or product session, with nine sourced second products and what each does not establish.
• Decision wizard. Eight scored questions returning the band, the weakest answer, and either of the two halt conditions.
• Transfer model. Eleven candidate transfer shares across the columns, the transfer the attempt needs, and the gap against the one you assume.
• Strategies and tactics. The moves at each of the four positions, what to do when the model halts, and four ways to make the next attempt cheaper to judge.
• Case studies. Nine sourced second products — three of them the same company, in one decade, with three different answers.
• Fit worksheet. The single page of record: the advantage in one sentence, the ceiling, the transfer share, both costs and the judging date.
• Roadmap template. Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, a falsifying signal and a periodic reporting line.
• Practitioner manual. The naming question, estimating the ceiling, working backwards to the transfer, pricing both costs, six failure modes and their indicators.
• Field checklist. The one-pager that survives outside the binder.
• About the package. What each file does and the order in which to run them.

Who the Second Product Strategy Pack is for

A chief executive about to approve a launch paper that claims three advantages; a product leader who suspects the revenue forecast is doing work an assumption should be doing; a chief financial officer asked to fund an attempt whose running cost is not in the document; a capital committee that has been told the project is strategic; an investor asking what a company's second product is actually testing; and the adviser who would otherwise start from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.

An honest note on fit

This is a kit for running a decision, not a research report and not a forecast. Worked examples use an explicitly fictional company with numbers tuned to teach rather than to flatter. In the worked case the second product would earn $420m a year at full transfer, the paper implies 35%, and the build of $380m compounded at the company's own 12% hurdle over three years comes to $534m — so the attempt needs 70.9% of the advantage to transfer, and the gap is 35.9 points.

Three limits are stated on the page rather than worked around. The model prices a single attempt rather than a portfolio of launches. It does not price optionality — Google Glass failed as a $1,500 consumer product and returned as Glass Enterprise Edition after testing at Boeing and GE, and that case has to be made explicitly rather than hidden in a forecast. And it does not price what the launch does to the first product: the attention it takes, the brand it stretches, or the platform position it may trade away, as Microsoft did in abandoning PlaysForSure to launch the Zune.

Questions about the Second Product Strategy Pack

What number does the model produce?

Four. What the second product earns at full transfer and at the share your paper assumes; what it returns cumulatively inside the window it gets; the build compounded at your own hurdle, which that return has to cover; and the transfer the attempt actually needs, against the one you are assuming. The Model tab sweeps candidate transfer shares rather than revenues, so the answer is a column you can point at — and the useful question about that column is where your own paper's assumption sits relative to it.

Are you saying not to launch second products?

No, and none of the four readings says not to. Second products are how a company stops being one product. What is being tested is whether the advantage was named and the share stated, or whether both were left as adjectives in a document no one could disagree with.

Our launch paper has no transfer share in it. Where do we start?

It has one — it is wearing a revenue forecast. Divide the forecast by what the product would earn at full transfer and the result is the share the paper is already assuming. It takes an hour and it is usually the first time anybody has seen the figure.

Are the case studies real companies?

Yes. Nine sourced second products: AWS, Alexa and the Fire Phone at Amazon; Google+ and Google Glass; the Zune and Windows Phone at Microsoft; Nokia; and Quibi. Each is dated, read through what the first product's advantage was, how much of it transferred and what the attempt cost, and each states what its evidence does not establish. Three of the nine are the same company, which is the most useful fact in the set. The worked model, wizard, and worksheet use an explicitly fictional company, labeled as such on every file.

What if we are attempting several launches at once?

Then you are playing a different game with different arithmetic, and the pack says so. Each attempt still needs its own version of this page, because the transfer question is about one advantage and one product — but a portfolio changes what an individual failure means, and that case has to be made explicitly.

Is this a subscription?

No. One payment, one download, sixteen files, yours to keep and to use inside your organization under the license included in the pack.

What is the Second Product Strategy Pack?

The Second Product Strategy Pack is a decision-support kit for one question: What made the first product work, and how much of it does the second one inherit? It contains 16 files — foundations, concept deck, decision wizard, transfer model, strategies and tactics, case studies, fit worksheet, roadmap template, practitioner manual, field checklist, about the package — built around a single organizing test: succeeding once teaches a company that it is good at building products, when what it actually has is a channel, a brand, a relationship or a capability — and the second product is the test of which one transfers. It is what a leadership team uses to run the decision and leave a record of what they assumed, rather than a report about the topic.

Who is the Second Product Strategy Pack for?

Anyone who has to make this call and answer for it: an operator or owner facing the decision, the executive team running it, the board or investor testing the reasoning, or an adviser who would otherwise build the framework from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.

What is in the Second Product Strategy Pack?

16 files in Word, PDF, PowerPoint and Excel: Foundations (Word + PDF) — The framework: the four things a first product can be, why the advantage never gets named, the transfer, and the five halts. Concept deck (PowerPoint + PDF) — Twenty-two slides for a board or product session, with nine sourced second products and what each does not establish. Decision wizard (Excel) — Eight scored questions returning the band, the weakest answer, and either of the two halt conditions. Transfer model (Excel, blank and worked) — Eleven candidate transfer shares across the columns, the transfer the attempt needs, and the gap against the one you assume. Strategies and tactics (Word) — The moves at each of the four positions, what to do when the model halts, and four ways to make the next attempt cheaper to judge. Case studies (Word) — Nine sourced second products — three of them the same company, in one decade, with three different answers. Fit worksheet (Word, blank and worked) — The single page of record: the advantage in one sentence, the ceiling, the transfer share, both costs and the judging date. Roadmap template (Word) — Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, a falsifying signal and a periodic reporting line. Practitioner manual (Word + PDF) — The naming question, estimating the ceiling, working backwards to the transfer, pricing both costs, six failure modes and their indicators. Field checklist (PDF) — The one-pager that survives outside the binder. About the package (PDF) — What each file does and the order in which to run them.

How is the Second Product Strategy Pack delivered?

As a single download of all 16 files, immediately after payment, with the same link sent by email. It can be downloaded 3 times and the link is valid for 30 days. There is nothing to install and no account to keep.

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